1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hardware management apparatus and method for managing hardware.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional system management technique manages the software configuration installed in an apparatus, and the versions of software and firmware. In a personal computer, the performance of which is frequently improved by such system management, the user can recognize the currently installed software via an operating system (OS).
By managing software by the operating system, the user can recognize the version of software installed for the purpose of function expansion or existing software, and can determine whether it is fit to communicate with another system or needs a version-up to do so.
When a new external device is connected to a personal computer, firmware must be changed to that which supports I/O of such device. In such case as well, the user checks the version of firmware to determine whether it is fit to connect an external device or needs a version-up to do so.
Such system management information indicating the installed software and firmware is stored in a nonvolatile storage device such as a hard disk drive (HDD), read-only memory (ROM), or the like when the software and firmware are installed. Therefore, the system management information is not erased even after power OFF, thus allowing system management.
In this manner, in the prior art, system management is made on the basis of software and firmware. However, the recent great advance in high-integration circuit technique of hardware has made high-function, multi-function, and high-performance hardware possible.
For this reason, system management of hardware is also required for the following reason.
Conventionally, components and functions correspond to each other like microprocessor components, memory components, parallel I/O components, serial I/O components, timepiece components, direct memory access control components, signal process components, and so forth, and the hardware management side can manage by marking mount states in components.
However, with the advance of the high-integration circuit technique of hardware, a plurality of such components are often combined to form a single component. As a result of high integration, the number of functions included per single component increases, but an apparatus that uses the component does not always use all the functions of the component.
Furthermore, such high-function components are mounted on a printed circuit board, and a plurality of circuit boards construct a system. Upon installing new software or connecting I/O devices, the use state of internal functions of components and use of a circuit board formed by mounting a plurality of such components differ.
For this reason, the component names and functions or board names and functions do not always match unlike the prior art, since the hardware configuration itself changes in correspondence with a change in system.
A system is comprised of software and hardware, and the conventional software-based system management is insufficient to manage the system when the system itself changes upon function expansion by installing new software or connecting new I/O devices.
As related techniques, history information is stored in a storage unit such as an IC card or the like inserted in a product, as disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication Nos. 2000-35991 and 2000-48066. Since this history information is that of a communication route of the product, it is different from a hardware management apparatus of the present invention, which stores management information indicating the hardware state.